"Releasing me? After only one visit and only one drug?" I pleaded. No response. "WTF is the matter with you?"
"There is nothing I can do to help you." He looked at the floor.
"So you're just giving up? You're not even going to try? What about the drugs I'm on now? Where am I supposed to get those? You know perfectly well a primary won't prescribe the narcotics I've been taking! What about my panic attacks? Where am I supposed to get Ativan, without which I will soon be hospital-bound?"
Without looking at me even once, he launched into preaching mode, "This is a pain you are just going to have to learn to live with. You have too many things wrong with you. Your heart, your back, your various injuries, your neuro-muscular issues...all of these are sources of pain and there is nothing I can do that will make it better. We all have to live with pain. For instance right now I have a headache and my hip hurts. See how I am standing?"
"I don't give a shit about your headache or your fucking hip. Take some aspirin and go see your referring physician." I left.
I got into my car and sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes just weeping. I have 24 days to find a drug source or I'm up shit creek. This pain is unendurable. Even with drugs it is barely manageable. I can't just *learn to live with it* since it affects every aspect of my life. It affects how I get out of bed, how I put on clothes, how I comb my hair, what I eat and how I eat it. Goddammit I can't even take a shower since each bead of water that falls on my skin feels like a dagger.
Sheer desperation has made me consider having mastectomies, wondering if I actually cut off my screamy boobs if they'll stop being so urgently screamy. On the other hand, if it's the nerve that is damaged, the nerve will still be there, and so will the pain. I can't win.
Suddenly it all becomes clear, and I understand it completely. This my friends, is exactly how heroin addicts get made -- out of sheer desperation.
Exactly. Self medicating is a very real thing. And believe me you when I say that. I have oftentimes wondered what it would feel like. That moment when it all comes together. I once heard someone say that it is better than the best orgasm you have ever had. And seeing as such I kinda want to get into the que for that. But I don't. Believe me, here in Canada it would be easy peasy to do it. They'd probably buy it for me. I once told a ex-friend that everyone back home thought I was an alcoholic / drug addict. If they ONLY knew that HERE it is as simple as walking to the corner where I could get my hands on any drug I wanted and some alcohol to go with. And then when I was unable to score all I have to do is walk back up to the corner and go to the methadone clinic and stop the dope sickness from kicking in. BUT I didn't and don't. So to them I say "I GUESS I WASN'T SUCH A DRUG ADDICT / ALCOHOLIC. You have my sympathies Pie. I literally feel your pain and predicament. And it sucks. How can people in this day and age STILL not understand that PAIN not so much STUPIDITY is what is crippling this country. Shit....
ReplyDeleteIf you are in pain and NEED the drug just to keep living without being curled up in a ball and screaming from the pain, you are not an addict. If anyone has a chronic pain condition and receives pain medication from a pain specialist, they are not addicts, they are PATIENTS. ::sigh::
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